This Company Created An App So You Don’t Have To Stand In Long Lines
FREDERICTON — With Covid-19 public health restrictions causing long lineups at businesses and government service centres across the country, a New Brunswick company has invented a solution — they just need more businesses to know about it.
Fredericton-based 3D Planeta has created 2metre, a mobile app that helps businesses address the challenges of physical distancing while meeting contact tracking and reporting requirements mandated by public authorities.
The idea for the software came when 3D Planeta CEO Norm Couturier was working from home at the beginning of lockdown.
“We’re working from home and watching the lineups take place at the Sobeys and the liquor store and the Costco and the pandemonium setting in,” he says.
“We realized there were no tools or technology or whatever to help people not have to stand outside in inclement weather trying to get into a retail establishment. We saw retailers panicking, not knowing what to do. They know how to manage people inside their buildings, but they don’t know what to do with the people outside their buildings.”
As a technology company, Couturier says they saw an opportunity to create a product that solved the problem.
“We can’t make build masks. We can’t build ventilators,” he says. “But we can make some tech. Why can’t we build a piece of software that helps the general public wait somewhere safely?”
The 2metre app allows a business’s customers to check into a waitlist, where they can see where their spot in line in real-time. This allows them to wait in their car or wherever they wish nearby until it’s their turn. Customers without the app are able to check in with the business’s frontline staff, and 2meter will send them updates via text message. 2metre also allows businesses to track the number of people inside and traffic flow. The software costs businesses $29 per month, regardless of how many employees they have.
The app launched back in August, with its target customers being places like restaurants, bars and pubs, big-box retail establishment, doctors offices, professional medical centres, and government services centres.
“Anywhere where there’s a line,” says Couturier. “Whether you have someone at the front door managing the line or not.”
2metre’s customers to date include restaurants & pubs in Ontario, as well as a multi-therapy clinic in Fredericton. They are also working with a grocery chain that’s currently piloting the app.
Couturier says businesses in provinces like Ontario and British Columbia have been more receptive to the service and see its value. Meanwhile, at home in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada, it’s been a harder sell. He says this is likely because businesses don’t see the need for it because of the low amount of Covid-19 cases the region has experienced.
“In New Brunswick, it has been a challenge. I’ll call it complacency. We’ve had beautiful weather, a beautiful summer. There are no Covid cases right beside you in your town every day threatening your health,” he says. “Businesses tend to not want to do more than they need to technology-wise and put those things together.”
But with colder weather on the way, Couturier says they expect more interest from Atlantic Canadian businesses in the coming months.
“We know what’s going to happen when that first freezing rain event takes place and there are 80 people waiting outside Service New Brunswick, for example. Or if we, heaven forbid, step back into a different coloured [recovery] zone and we have to have fewer people inside of buildings and the lines get bigger,” he says.
“People aren’t going to be as interested in waiting outside in the snow or the freezing rain or sleet as they would be in August and September when we have this magnificent weather outside.”
He says their goal now is to reach more businesses across the country, particularly in Ontario and British Columbia. They have a team of University of New Brunswick MBA students working with them on a direct marketing campaign to get the 2metre brand in front of more businesses that could use it.
“The challenge is now is to reach more businesses,” says Couturier. “Like any Software as a service platform, the customer needs to know that you’re there.”